“For months, I had been painting and welding repeatedly,” he said. “And I had been thinking - in the morning, in the evening, before every meal, even when I was going to the toilet - I was always thinking about what to do in each step and how to make it raise its legs and walk like a man.”

“And finally all the hard work has paid off,” Shaojie said.

The robot wears a Japanese World War II soldier’s uniform and has attracted a lot of attention in Luoyang, Henan province - the frontline of the conflict in 1944 and the Chinese famine of 1942-43.

"And I also have this dream," the bizarre creation’s inventor added. “I want to build a series of robots on the theme of resistance against Japanese aggression in order to honour the heroes who sacrificed [themselves] for our country.”